HARRISON, WI (WTAQ) – Mild temperatures, strong winds, and rain gusts all joined forces to move around the ice on Lake Winnebago.
That means the conversation has now shifted from thin ice to ice on the shoreline, as was the case around Lake Winnebago on Thursday.
The northern shoreline near Harrison was one affected area.
“We only have about three inches of ice out there. and the wind blows this hard, it will start to move the lake around, if there’s open water, which there is,” says Dan Laeyendecker of Harrison.
He discovered ice shoves outside his home early Thursday morning.
But it wasn’t just the northern shoreline where this happened, because it was a similar scene on the western shoreline near Oshkosh.
“You might have ice shoves this high, coming up 10-20 feet on that west side of the lake,” says Bill Lodi, Rippn-Lips Tackle Company Owner.
He says the main contributing factor of the ice shoves was strong winds out of the southeast.
In addition to the strong wind, Lodi believes rain played an important factor as well.
“You get all these little creeks, that flow into the lake, and what that does is creates runoff from a lot of the farms that are on this side of the lake,” he explains. “By the time this stuff gets to the middle of the lake, the lake can be churned up, and it can get pretty dirty.”
Following the ice movement, concerns are now being shifted to the impact on fishing, such as the upcoming sturgeon spearing season in six weeks.
“We’re hoping that a lot of that sediment settles down before sturgeon spearing,” says Lodi. “And the water clarity will be better than we had previous years.”
For the individuals that have long lived on Lake Winnebago though, Thursday was nothing out of the ordinary.
“This is part of the deal,” explains Laeyendecker. “But the good outweighs the bad, so you just have to deal with it.”
No ice is ever considered 100 percent safe by authorities and it will take many days with single-digit or below-zero temperatures before conditions improve.
